BOSTON — The banner marking the American League East division championship will be hung at Tropicana Field next April, and there will be other mementos and lasting memories from the 100-win regular season that was the most successful in Rays’ history.
But the primary, and pretty much only, goal was to get back to the World Series and win the franchise’s first championship, one that eluded them in two previous attempts, last year and 2008.
And by that measure, this season turned out to be a dismal disappointment.
Rather than playing in a World Series that could stretch past Halloween, the Rays’ season ended on Columbus Day, stunningly knocked out in the first-round Division Series by the rival Red Sox in four games, Monday’s 6-5 walkoff loss the final blow.
The end came painfully, as Enrique Hernandez delivered a sac fly to score Danny Santana, a pinch-runner for Christian Vazquez, who led off the ninth with a single to left off J.P. Feyereisen, went to second on a bunt and third on an infield single.
That after the Rays came back from a 5-0 third-inning deficit, cutting the margin to 5-3 and then tying it with a rally in the eighth on consecutive hits by Mike Zunino, Kevin Kiermaier and Randy Arozarena.
Kiermaier then made a huge play to keep it tied heading to the ninth.
Alex Verdugo reached second to start the inning when Rays rookie shortstop Wander Franco fielded a bouncer but threw wildly past first. With one out, Kiermaier caught Hunter Renfroe’s fly ball to the right of centerfield and fired a one-bounce throw to third, where Yandy Diaz applied a tag, with the call withstanding a one-minute, 53-second replay review.
Of the seven times the Rays have made the playoffs in the last 14 years, this is the fifth time they have been knocked out in the best-of-five division series round.
Of the 18 American League teams to win 100 games in the wild-card era (starting in 1995), seven lost in the division series round. And in the eight years of the single-game wild card matchup, the top seeds have lost the division series to the wild-card winner seven times.
Because they used nine pitchers in Sunday’s 13-inning loss, and as somewhat a by-product of how they constructed their 26-man roster in planning to use only three traditional starters, the Rays were a bit shorthanded pitching-wise Monday.
That forced them to consider some unexpected options, and the one manager Kevin Cash chose — bringing back Game 1 starter Shane McClanahan on short rest to pitch in relief — failed miserably, as he allowed five runs in an eight-batter sequence in the third.
The Red Sox jumped ahead Monday when Cash decided that two scoreless innings, and 18 pitches, were enough for opener Collin McHugh.
McClanahan, the hard-throwing lefty starter, came in for the third, and things got ugly quickly.
McClanahan allowed a leadoff single to Vazquez, a one-out four-pitch walk to lefty Kyle Schwarber, then a two-out three-run homer to lefty Rafael Devers.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he gave up a single to Xander Bogaerts, then an RBI double to Alex Verdugo, and an RBI single to J.D. Martinez to make it 5-0.
Going to McClanahan in that situation seemed somewhat of a gamble, as the 24-year-old rookie from USF was used exclusively as a starter this season and didn’t pitch on less than four days’ rest all year, and only five times at that, usually getting more.
Down 5-0 and shut down by Sox starter Eduardo Rodriguez, the Rays started to make a comeback in the fifth. Jordan Luplow doubled, went to third on a fly out and scored on Austin Meadows’ ground out.
They got two more in the sixth. Kiermaier blooped a ball into short left for a leadoff double, and with one out, Franco laced a two-run homer to center to make it 5-3.
